Phoenix
by Tsunade's Apprentice
Summary: This started as a little drabble at the end of Heir of Fire and it's since grown to a small collection featuring different characters, scenes and feelings based on my insatiable need for the next book and my imagination being in overdrive. Chapters 4 & 5 contain spoilers for book 5..
1. Phoenix

Hello and welcome to my first fanfic in ages. I read Heir of Fire this weekend twice and just couldn't believe how much I loved it or how Celaena could possibly have left Rowan behind! This piece is the result of my mind being stuck in an Heir of Fire loop. There may be more installments, there may not, I just had to get this out of my head.

**Disclaimer**: All credit for the amazing Throne of Glass series goes to the wonderful Sarah J Maas, of whom I am totally in awe!

_Phoenix_

The return journey to Mistward took Rowan considerably less time than the outward journey had. That should have been a good thing, would have been a good thing, in the past.

Instead his blood was boiling with frustration which was only exacerbated by the silence surrounding him. Even the chill of the night air gliding over his feathers, the biting cold of his magic deep inside, none of it could cool his temper.

Centuries of life had taught him patience but that just crumbled away in the face of this injustice.

She had left him.

He was a protector, a warrior and yet right now he was helpless. Aelin had sailed back to Adarlan, to the very city where that monster sat on his throne, and left him behind as she put herself in danger.

He understood her reasons, both the ones she'd said out loud and the more private ones she'd kept to herself. He would stand out in Rifthold, anywhere in Adarlan for that matter. Even if the Fae that had lived there in the past hadn't left, he was nothing like them with their gentle, joyous hearts. As for his animal form, a hawk would be no good to Aelin in the challenges ahead. But at least he would have been with her, to reassure her and remind her that she was never alone.

But Arobynn Hamel was her own, private, demon. Rowan had gleaned that she was hiding the truth from herself, of Arobynn's involvement, when she first told him the story of her incarceration in Endovier and the heart rending events leading up to it. But in the weeks since the attack on Mistward, since her final encounter with the Valg princes, he had seen a change in her. Completely by accident, the Valg had given her a gift and had created their own perfect enemy. After breaking every shred of resistance she had left, the Valg had forced her to relive her most harrowing and formative memories. Again and again, until eventually, she had seen the truth of them, become a true phoenix rising from the ashes.

Yes, he understood that Aelin, no, Celaena had to face Arobynn herself. Alone. This was Celaena's fight. She had to defeat him, as Rowan himself had defeated the beasts that had killed Lyria, all those years before. The wyrdkey had simply pushed her into action, not made the decision for her. Arobynn Hamel had signed his own execution the day he took Sam from her. All that had changed was the timing.

The foothills of the Cambridge Mountains swept by underneath, blanketed by the night as he continued his journey, his mind lost in thought.

He was old and had lived through much but listening to the stories of her life, that blink-of-an-eye that was her life, had made him take a closer look at his own.

When Lyria had died, had been murdered in their home that should have been a safe place, he had lost all sense of self. The next decade he had barely been more than an animal, a creature of grief, anger and self-loathing. He had welcomed the suffering that came with being Maeve's blood-sworn servant. There were no choices to be made, no freedoms, no rights and no blame. His mate had died for Maeve's wishes, for his own arrogance. The least he could do was make that sacrifice, that loss, mean something by making his servitude to Maeve complete. Rowan had spent the next centuries trying to claw his way out of the abyss that was his grief, knowing that he didn't truly deserve to ever escape it.

All that had started to change after he met Aelin.

In the beginning Rowan had thought that the girl he'd been charged with was nothing more than a spoiled, undisciplined brat. He knew, now, that she was that, but she was also so much more. The angry, mouthy child he had met was nothing more than the crumbling shell left behind after the toll her life so far had taken on her. Like the phoenix, she was burned to smouldering ashes, nothing solid left, just smoke to remind the onlooker what she had once been.

Emrys had been right to take Rowan to task about his attitude toward her. Every word the old man had said was true. Aelin did need someone to hold her hand, to pull her back up when she fell, to help her become a woman who would change the world, not someone to slap her down time and again as he had been doing. It shouldn't have taken the old story teller, a mortal who had lived a fraction of the life that Rowan himself had, to point that out, and Rowan was ashamed that it had.

Slowly, Aelin had become an indelible part of his life, her presence at night enough to keep the guilt and it's nightmares away. The sound of the steel in her voice, weak but growing stronger every day, had begun to shake the walls he'd put up, enough for him to take another look at himself. Enough for him to hear the echos in the empty space inside of himself that Maeve had created, where his soul should have been.

He had deserved the pain of Maeve's enslavement, had deserved every moment of it. But in the light of the wildfire that was Aelin's heart, he had seen a new future, a new way to repent for his failure. One that didn't require his soul as payment.

There were thousands of people, innocent people, suffering just as Lyria had because of the tyrant who sat upon the glass throne. Some of them murdered for their magic, their husbands, wives, children and parents killed as they were forced to watch. Others were enslaved in Callacula or Endovier where death was a blessing, for being rebels, for believing in a better world. He couldn't help them but Aelin could. Aelin would. And when she gathered them he would be there, to help her and to take the ones like himself, those who burned with revenge and give them the skills to claim their own retribution.

When the time came Rowan knew he would stand at Aelin's side. And it would be Aelin. Celaena Sardinien who had taught Aelin so much would be laid to rest with the King of the Assassins and Aelin would finish becoming the Queen she was always meant to be, Celaena just another facet.

He would stand at her side, fight at her back, until one of them took their final breath. Rowan would be her right hand, he would make sure that she always had someone to trust, who would see her for her and not the expectations of the world.

It chafed more than he could put into words that she had gone into danger without him but he would do what he could for her here, even if that was just to keep the demi-fae of Mistward safe, to train them for the war that was looming ever closer.

Maybe one day when he faded into the Afterworld, he could face Lyria, look her in the eye. Nothing would ever fix the mistakes of the past but maybe he could prove to her that he had become a better man, one who deserved the chance to apologise.

Thanks for reading ?


	2. Homecoming

Hello again, everyone! The ending of book three just _won't _leave me alone so my imagination is still running wild. The result is this second instalment.

II'll apologise now to any of you that are looking for action and big long scenes where lots of things are happening. If you want that you'll have to wait for book four because I'm really only good at introspection. I'll spend the foreseeable future mulling over little situations, either in the book or that are bound to happen, and how different characters feel about them, what's shaped them into who they've become etc etc. If you're up for that you're welcome to join in with my musings :) if you have any thought about characters feel free to mention them in a review and I'll do my best to let my imagination have at them.

**Homecoming**

Creeping across the rooftops of Rifthold, Celaena found herself wishing she could shift into her fae form.

It was hard, now, to believe that just months ago, as she has stood on these shores waiting to board the ship to Wendlyn, the fear of the transformation and the magic that came with it had been gnawing at her mind. A shadow that followed her everywhere. Now the deft skill and grace, never mind the heightened senses, might have given her the confidence to calm her racing heart.

Rifthold.

The home of two nightmare figures. The King of Adarlan and the King of Assassins.

The pulsing, rotted core of this Kingdom that had been the death of so many others, spreading across the country like a disease. Celaena had been too young to understand that every city had a dark side, at the time that Terrasen had fallen, and had spent so many years in Rifthold that until her journey to Varese that she hadn't realised the true depth of depravity and corruption that existed here until she had seen Varese for comparison. And that corruption was not just in Rifthold but in all the cities of Adarlan. She also hadn't realised just a how big a part in that corruption the Assassins Guild had played.

During her years at the Guild she had buried her past, even from herself while at the same time, learning it's skills as a tool for that same forgotten girl she had been. She had ignored the truth of what she was training to do, had forced herself to forget that she was as much a part of the underworld as thieves and prostitutes.

Now, the Valg Princes had given her a different perspective on things, had helped her re-find her honour and see the Assassins Guild for what it was. Especially Arobynn's theft of her amulet.

Scurrying across another rooftop she wondered for the hundredth time just what she was doing. The weeks aboard the ship from Wendlyn had given her plenty of time to think about what she was doing, come up with a plan and then question whether she had really lost her sanity in the attack on Mistward, because coming back here was nothing short of madness. She knew she had to get the amulet back, that was clear, but Arobynn had been the King of the Assassins for such a long time for a reason. She was Celaena Sardothien, Adarlan's Assassins. But right now her mortal form just made her feel weak and out matched. Especially after being put on her ass so many times by Rowan. That in particular had made her realise that she wasn't as flawless and infallible as she had sometimes liked to believe herself to be in the past.

Rowan. The weeks without him on the boat had been hard, the darkness that had enveloped her after Nehemia's death starting to creep back in at the edges. She held onto the thought that he had believed in her. _He_ had believed in her. A Fae who had fought in countless wars over the centuries, seen who-knew-how-many kingdoms fall, seen innumerable rulers fail. He had believed in her. Despite the mutual hatred they had felt when they had first met. He would be her friend, her companion through all of this, no matter how dark things became. He had sworn a blood oath to her, the most unbreakable of bonds. Because he had wanted to. Because he believed in her.

Galvanising herself with that thought, again, Celaena continued her journey. She was finally going back to the place that had been her home. The only place she had ever had a taste of freedom.

The apartment she had shared with Sam. The pain in her heart when she thought of him was echoed by a phantom pain in her back.

She knew going back there was a risk. Both Chaol and Arobynn knew about it. If Chaol had worked out what she had told him before she left for Wendlyn there was a good chance that he had told the King.

The thought made Celaena shudder. She wasn't sure she could ever forgive Chaol for keeping the threat to Nehemia from her, for choosing his loyalty to that tyrant the over his loyalty to her, but the thought of him betraying her outright to the King felt fundamentally wrong to her. She had destroyed what was between them but the frequency of his appearances in her thoughts was testament to the fact that what she felt for him was still strong. If he really had gone to the King with what he had learned about her it was a betrayal only matched by that of Arobynn himself.

Her time under the power of the Valg had forced her to confront the truth about what had happened all those many moons ago. She always knew someone had betrayed her and somewhere inside she had always known it was Arobynn. But until now she had never let herself give it credence. She had accepted that he had let her get taken to Endovier. Had let her spend twelve grueling months there. Even though he had the power to get her out, to set her free at any moment. All because she had paid up her debts, had freed herself from him. He had told her that he loved her and maybe it was true in some distorted way. A way that wouldn't let her walk away from him without punishment.

Her skin crawled at the thought of that kind of love. The kind where torturing a young man until he was unrecognisable, sending the fledgling woman you loved to suffer in the slave camps seemed a fair punishment.

Soon she would put a knife through his heart, would watch him die and she would know no pity for that man. The day had been a long time coming but it wasn't far off now. She wouldn't rush. This couldn't go wrong. She would be meticulous and methodical because, although the desire for revenge was a constant thrumming in her blood, vibrating with the names tattooed on her back, this was first and foremost about the wyrdkey hidden inside the talisman that Arobynn had taken from her eleven years ago. That was her greatest weapon against the King of Adarlan.

As Celaena neared the warehouse that contained her apartment she cursed. There were lights in the windows.

Continuing her silent approach, she first circled the apartment, checking all the surrounding buildings, alleys and roofs for spies, then she began her inspection of her treasured apartment, trying to determine who was inside. What she saw first made her heart stop. There, in front of the fire, her leg fully healed, was Fleetfoot. Her coat had its usual lustre and the dog seemed relaxed as she watched the occupants of the room, and judging by the way she was looking in different directions there were at least two.

Sticking to the shadows Celaena moved to get a wider view of the room and the people within. First she saw a man sitting on the sofa. Her sofa. The man was young, no more than a handful of years older that she was herself, and had scruffy looking, long hair. The man in front of him with his back to her...

If Celaena had thought that her heart had stopped at the sight of Fleetfoot it was nothing compared to now, at the sight of _him_. Her heart seemed ready to burst, the pain and longing and anger all vying for her sole attention but each as strong as the other. The tumult of emotion was nearly enough to make her rush in. But she wasn't Adarlan's Assassin for nothing.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to sit, to think.

It seemed the time for her to face Chaol Westfall, Captain of the Guard, had come.


	3. Blue Blood

Erm... I'm sorry for disappearing for a year...?

Thank you all of you that have kept me on you alert andfavourite lists, seeing how many of you enjoyed my little musings has brought light into what's sometimes seemed a very dark year. Your reviews have been a treasure.

Obviously, Queen of Shadows is now out and as such this little ramble contains spoilers. Yes, SPOILERS.

Manon has been bouncing around in my head since I finished the book on Tuesday. Reading it again only made it worse and this is the result.

There's other ideas floating around in there too: the relationship between Aelin and Rowan is just so so beautiful and I particularly like the idea of Aelin's having hero worshipped Rowan as a child... That could well lead somewhere too...

Hope.

It was such a foreign word, such a foreign concept.

Such a human concept.

Witches weren't human.

Oh, they were sired by human men, and the occasional Fae, but they weren't human. Their blood ran blue as true as the Valg's ran black. The odd human was born to a witch but it was rare.

Hope was a human feeling, a Crochan feeling.

Hope was a feeling that now tugged at Manon's frozen heart.

In all the years of her life, Manon had never doubted the existence of the Three Faced Goddess, the Goddess was a force, like the sun, not active but there and insurmountable. Yet in the last weeks Manon had felt the Goddess' touch several times, like a thread pulling her or a wind pushing her. First with the Terrasen Queen, Manon had felt fate pulling the young woman back to her in that temple; then with Elide, urging her faster, faster, faster; then finally, with Dorian, the Prince become King who's face now plagued her dreams.

The day the King of Adarlan had finally died, when magic had returned in that blissful wave, Manon had felt that pull again,calling her to Adarlan. For days it was a steady, gentle nudge. Then it became insistent.

A pull toward Dorian.

She had landed just moments before he stepped onto that balcony and Manon had known that the Three Faced Goddess was at work.

She wasn't relieved, wasn't happy, that he had survived and been freed of the monster that had imprisoned him within his own flesh. She felt... Content. Almost like Abraxos' satisfied rumble as he settled down for the night with a full belly.

Contentment. Another human emotion.

Manon had had never known that human emotion sympathy, either. Not until that day with Asterin when the world she had known was turned upside down. Now it crept in when she thought of those other unnamed witches's her grandmother had branded, when she thought of the struggles and hardships that Elide would have to face on her own, when she dreamt of the horror in those beautiful blue eyes of a human King.

And sadness.

That was yet another emotion that Manon had never felt before. Not until she had returned to Morath, until she had looked into the faces of her witches and realised that she had never seen any one of them smile the way Asterin had. That many of them didn't know how to. And that others did.

The Blackbeak Matriarch was Manon's flesh and blood but she was now also Manon's enemy. She was the one condemning witches to become nothing more than breeding stock, their treasured witchlings defaced, substituted for the vilest mockery of life. She was the one who had bowed to a mortal, placing witches in the position of plaything to the Adarlan King and this Duke Perrington. Fury was a familiar feeling to Manon. The feeling of her blood thrumming with the lust of ripping out her prey's throat. The time had come for change and it would be heralded by her grandmother's blue blood staining the ground. If it even still ran blue.

Hope was something Manon had never felt before now, but she recognised it's embers smoldering inside her icy heart, found that she wanted to nurture it in herself and her witches. Found that it was strengthening the pull towards both the blue-eyed King and the Golden Queen of Terrasen. Towards a very different way of life.


	4. Foundations

So first off, this is full of spoilers for empire of Storms!

Also sorry I left this on 'hiatus' for so long. Heir of Fire really stuck with me and I've spent all this time drooling over Rowan, but I never managed to put pen to paper. The words never quite felt right. But now, Empire of Storms has happened and I've been left distraught and confused by the ending and wondering how I'm going make it a year for the final book. So this somewhat unfinished feeling piece has spewed its way forth.

These books still don't belong to me, just my imagination.

**Foundations**

Lorcan Salvaterre wasn't a man of kindness or mercy, of guilt or remorse. Blessed by Hellas himself, the greatest mercy Lorcan was capable of was sparing his victims the slow, drawn out agony of a death given by Anneith, Hellas' own consort. But death at Lorcan's hands was never anything less than brutal.

Never, in his five hundred years of life, in centuries of serving Maeve, had he regretted a single action. Never doubted a choice or a command. Always he had loved Maeve, had relished being her right hand when it came to meeting out punishment and retribution, had gloried in the blood, the destruction.

The agony of the severed Blood Oath still had him waking at night. The betrayal of those minutes turning his blood to ice.

Aelin Galathinius had destroyed his world, burned it into so much ash as she was so often wont to do. It had all started when she had come to his queen, asking about the Wyrd keys. Never had he heard of them before, never had he seen such lust and hunger in his sovereign's eyes.

And he'd known then, what he had to do and the death that would be his reward for saving his queen from herself. Had accepted it and acted without hesitation.

But now, sat upon another God's dammed ship, this time heading back to the Eastern continent, he questioned. So much more than the Blood Oath had been broken on that windswept beach. The very foundations of his world had been cracked, the most sacred of things used as nothing more than a tool.

Lorcan had listened to Maeve's revelations of how she had awaited the arrival of Aelin Galathinius, how she had seen the bond between her and Whitethorn, seen the kingdom they would create and the children they would have. How she had decided to break them and use her for her own schemes.

None of that had interested him, beyond the fact that Maeve had been prepared to give up the Blood Oath to Rowan. Until she had spoken of that flower girl.

The bond between mates was sacred.

It wasn't as if he had never used a mate against an enemy, he was a warrior of Hellas. But to create a bond, to forge that most pure and overwhelming of sensations... That was a betrayal that Lorcan had never considered, not for an instant. Not only because he had never considered it possible, but because the mating bond was sacrosanct.

Yet Maeve had used it as just another tool.

In that instant he had seen the shock in Fenrys' eyes, in Gavriel's, had seen the hot, wet tears on Elide's face and had known that they felt the same horror as he. He had watched Aelin Galathinius' heart of fire bleed at the words.

And he had stood through it all, holding Elide in that vice-like grip while he himself was similarly bound by the command of the Blood Oath. He had stood as Aelin Galathinius, the pillar of that court which had made even him begin to see a glimmer of hope for the future, had been whipped and been locked inside that beautiful, hideous casket of iron and taken away.

Never had he felt more useless.

And then Maeve had spoken those words to him, had severed that Oath. In desperation, in horror he had tried to crawl after Maeve, the foundation stone of his life.

And then he had looked back to see the horror in Elide's eyes, the revulsion. And known that the Blood Oath wasn't the only bond that had been broken in that instant.

Now... Now, he didn't know what they could possibly achieve against the beauty, the horror of Maeve's magic, against the undeniable fact that even if they rescued her, the Queen of Terrassen had to die, but he knew that he would face any challenge, any horror, to take that look of disgust out of Elide's beautiful eyes.

To try to find that ember of hope that seemed to have spread from the Heir of Fire and ignited in the barren hearts of so many.


	5. Loyalty

So, I'm back again.

I'm doing these between preparing lessons and playing with my dog so there's bound to be mistakes, typos and slightly disjointed parts, but please bear with me and remember - I am a review where.

Although I'm the proud owner of the entire series and, since lunchtime today, the beautiful colouring book, I still have no rights to the series, characters or Fleetfoot.

Thump - thump - thump - thump - thump.

The beating of her leopard's heart, the drum of her paws racing across the loamy forest floor, the bellows of her mighty lungs, it all wrapped around her in a symphony of wildness, of freedom. As her hind legs bunched in preparation of leaping into the forest canopy, Lysandra let out a roar of joy, her senses tingling in satisfaction as the denizens of the surrounding forest fell silent, as the wind rushed past her sensitive whiskers and her paws found sure footing in the branches before launching her to the next tree.

Up ahead she could see the tree cover becoming more sparse and so, mid-jump, she shifted. Her body changed from that of her beloved snow leopard into a swooping, beautiful falcon between one heartbeat and the next, no hint of pain, just a burst of exhilaration as her wings caught the air currents and she shot out of the trees into a wide, beautiful meadow.

Which her wonderful eyes she could see all manner of creatures, from a tiny field mouse rushing for cover to a deer pulling off the bark of a tree just barely shadowed by the edge of the forest and a soft-feathered owl waiting out the final hours of daylight before beginning his hunt.

Joy raced through her at the knowledge that she could be any one of these and more with just a thought. After so many years, this was freedom!

Seeing a small bole scurrying through the meadow she banked, letting the wind currents and thousands of years of instinct guide her before she tucked in her wings and began diving —

Aedion opened the curtains, light flooding the room and tearing her from her dream.

A dream, that's all it had been.

Sunlight gleamed off her golden hair, longer than she liked to wear it these days. Playing her hair through her fingers, watching it catch the light, she again wondered at the different hues, the slight waves that transformed it from merely beautiful to breathtaking.

Dropping her hair she let her eyes travel to her toned, muscular body. A body built for stealth and speed, for combat. So different from the body she had called hers for so long. That body had been lithe and supple but soft and curvaceous, not the rock solid mass of muscle she now wore, with only a select few soft spots in the most feminine of places.

Even in recent months, on the occasions when she had taken various human forms to gather information or supplies, she had never come close to a body like this. Admittedly, this body wasn't human, rather it was fae, but she'd worn the human form of it too and that was hardly any softer.

No, Aelin Galathinius' body was a thing of beauty, as wild and ferocious as any of the forms that Lysandra had worn but still it felt like a cage.

For three weeks now she and Aedion had travelled north accompanied by the armies their queen had rallied. For three weeks she had been unable to shift into anything but this human or fae body.

How she longed to feel the wind in her feathers, the brush of leaves and twigs against her fur, the currents of the sea over scales or hills.

She had no doubt that it would be a thrill comparable to any of her favourite forms, to run wild in this body, to hurtle through the forest as Aelin had done those months in Wendlyn, a fae Prince at her side.

But, as always when she imagined that scene, it wasn't Aelin and Rowan, but a fae form of Lysandra, Aedion at her side.

Aedion, whom she wished would stop looking at her with anger, guilt and even grief in his eyes.

She hadn't been ready to accept his advances in Skulls Bay, small as they had been. And though she had huffed a laugh at his declaration that day on the beach, amused by his male, fae arrogance, she had felt a knot ease deep inside when he'd told her with such conviction that it didn't matter how long he had to wait. That it was her choice.

But so much had changed since the day, the instant, Maeve had taken Aelin. Since Lysandra had told them of their queen's plan. She knew that when he was being logical, Aedion didn't blame her for her part in all of this but she also understood that each and every day he had to look into the face of his beloved cousin only to be reminded of the suffering his queen was being subjected to, the doubt about whether or not she was even still alive, the guilt of his own accusations.

Every day they had to face the world with their masks in place, to present a perfect facade. To ignore the fact that their king was desperately searching for his mate and the knowledge of what it would do to him if he was too late. If he failed.

Getting out of bed, Lysandra again sent a prayer to Temis, the goddess of wild things, that her own magic would be enough, that they would survive another day without Aelin Galathinius' wildfire.

Sent a prayer to Malaysia that her Queen, her _friend_ had the strength to hold on_. _

That their king and queen would return to them soon


End file.
